Page 66
Property Mail
YORKSHIRE
£495, 000
BRECON HAMPSHIRE
ON THE MARKET... rural splendour
TROUTSDALE is a three-
bedroom house in the
North Yorkshire Moors
National Park. It has a
summer house and was
recently renovated.
n Hunters.com,
01653 699875.SITUATED at a height of
some 970 ft on Sugar Loaf
mountain, overlooking
Llangenny, this 200-year-
old cottage has three
bedrooms and 13 acres.
n Fineandcountry.com,
01873 858 990.THIS three-bedroom
cottage near Overton has
mature gardens and a
wood burner in the sitting
room, as well as planning
permission to extend.
n Knightfrank.com,
01256 630 971.
£630,000 £500, 000INTERIORS — Page 68
referendum. We need to move
due to changes in both of our
jobs, otherwise we’d give up.
We have dropped the price
to £595,000 ( seddons.com)
and are working our way
through every agent in the
county. Viewings remain
plentiful; offers do not.
Despite it all — Brexit,
climate change, Monday’s
inevitable feedback from the
agents — we are determined
to remain optimistic.
So, first, we ensure that we
are ready 30 minutes early,
because some viewers like
to keep us on our toes.
If they’re 15 minutes late,
however, we are resigned to
the bad news that the narrow
lane was the dealbreaker
— a lane that we like, as itprevents our area becoming
a rat run and is brilliant for
tobogganing in the snow.
Next, we take bets on
whether they will stall on the
drive (too steep) or even turn
up (bad traffic — they did call,
but the office was closed).
The car parks up, which
takes a while if towing a
speedboat, and I greet them,hoping that they won’t let
their dogs out immediately to
do their business all over the
children’s dens.
Quickly, I point out the
spectacular views: Sidmouth
Gap, the Blackdown Hills, our
verdant valley. We have been
burnt before by complaints that
the vista is not broad enough.
I hear my neighbour’s tractor
rattle into life. I glance at my
prospective buyers: more than
one has been put off by being
next to a farm. I am tempted to explain
that, if you want to live in the rural bliss
of the West Country, near Tiverton in
Devon, then a farm is an inevitability.N
exT, we move into the house
and I brace myself for the
comment that this layout
won’t work, which they might
have realised before if they had looked at
the floorplan in the brochure. The same
goes for outside: we own 3.29 acres, and it
doesn’t grow or shrink in the rain.
We climb the stairs. I wonder if their
children will accompany us or carry on
pulling our children’s toys off the shelves
in the playroom. The water pressure is
good, and I smile confidently as they turn
the taps on and off and flush the loos.
I am not so confident when they start
opening the cupboards — our lives had
to be hidden somewhere.
Out to the garden, where some see too
many trees, others too few, and where I
see children’s birthday parties, rounders,
paddling pools and where we havelaughed and danced and eaten with
friends late into the night.
Finally, the stables. The pony we rode
to primary school is no longer there,
but times move on, and now it’s a cider
barn, a woodshed, a swallow nursery
and a teenage hangout.
Yet, on Monday, I won’t be surprised to
hear that it is too big, too wooden — or
the wrong size for the carp pond.
We await the verdict. Is the bathroom
too small? Is the house too old? How do
you put a price on a thriving community
— on apple day, the WI, the church, the
outstanding secondary school, the pub,
and the neighbours who look after your
chickens, or babysit, or just wave at you
in the mornings?
For now, the children breathe a sigh of
relief and go back to throwing darts at
each other or looking for slow worms.
This has been our family home for ten
years and, despite what anyone else may
think, it has been pretty perfect for us.L
aTe afternoon on a Friday
— time to kick back, relax.
Bees buzz lazily over the
roses as a gentle breeze
rustles through the leaves.But something is not quite right.
Why are the children sitting rictus-
grinned at the kitchen table while I hastily
polish the sink with one hand and Hoover
up dog hair with the other? as it turns out,
it is because we have yet another viewing.
It is a terrible time to be selling a house.
The market is choking while politicians
play with our futures. The dithering is
catching: buyers are twitchy, unwilling
to commit to anything but perfection.
We have been in this limbo for almost three
years now, neatly paralleled with the 2016
by Vanessa de Haan
Happy memories: Vanessa’s Devon home is up for sale. Inset, the de Haans(^) Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019
Our hOuse wON’t seLL
fOr LOve NOr mONey!